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Help, how do I get slick lather?

Thanks to you all, I think I have the issue fixed. It was that I wasn't using enough soap. When I started wet shaving, I lathered on the puck, as I didn't know any better, so I had plenty of product then. Later I got a lather bowl and unintentionally used less product and mistook volume for a good lather. Now I've fixed that. Thanks for the advice, everyone!
 
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Thanks to you all, I think I have the issue fixed. It was that I wasn't using enough soap. When I started wet shaving, I lathered on the puck, as I didn't know any better, so I had plenty of product then. Later I got a lather bowl and unintentionally used less product and mistook volume for a good lather. Now I've fixed that. Thanks for the advice, everyone!

Oddly enough, 95% of lather questions come down to "more soap" or "more water." Glad you got the issue squared away.
 
I have tried well over 100 soap formulations in search of the very best performing soaps. Nearly all of them produce a slick lather. However, I do have difficulty getting slickness with Proraso Red and with glycerin-based soaps. I have not used Razorrock. Considering the primary ingredients are potassium and sodium palmate, you should be able to get a slick lather, but the overall lather quality probably won't be that great.

I could suggest a several few dozen soaps that will perform better than the ones you are using, but since you insist on sticking with what you have, I won't bother listing them.
 

Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker

Likes a fat handle in his hand

Help, how do I get slick lather?


Take a bouillon or teaspoon, scoop up some tallow based soap from the puk. Place soap from spoon into lather bowl, use your thumb to smoosh it around evenly. Place a teaspoon of water into the lather bowl, and wet your brush in the sink or in a mug. Once the brush is wet, shake out two times. Then bring brush to your bowl, and begin working up a lather.

Once your lather begins to get pasty, add another teaspoon of water to the bowl, and continue working it. You may have to add an additional teaspoon of water later on, do so at your own discretion. Your ending goal should be, that you have enough lather built up in the bowl to do at least a 3-pass shave, and the lather consistency you have built, is a creamy yogurt consistency.

This is what your lather should look like...

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A well moisturized lather, that will keep your face nice and slick for the razor to glide, without causing irritation, and also helps prevent nicks and weepers.

🪙 My Two Cents🪙
 
Thank you for responding. Glad to hear you are a fellow Williams fan - its what I started with 3+ years ago. Respect that hand soap matches your preferences. Agree that one does not need to spend a lot for shaving soap that delivers good core shaving performance (ease of lathering, slickness & stability).

Saw that you've also used Dove in addition to Dial and Irish Spring over the years. You may be able to give yourself an improved shaving experience if you blend the Dove with one of your tallow based favorites or Ivory with the Dial/Irish Spring/Ivory providing slickness while the Dove makes the lather richer and more stable.

See the link below to a post that highlights my experiments in this area (#4 50/50 Dove/Ivory blend). Based on my test results a blend of 1/3 Dove with 2/3's tallow based bath soap could work best. Basically just grate the two soaps, mix together and press tightly into your preferred shaving soap container. Adding a small amount of water to the blend while mixing should allow it to hold together better. Note that, per my earlier post, you can get much of the Dove superlathering benefit by just pressing a chunk into your current mix of bath soaps though grating and mixing will provide more consistency.

Dove Men+Care: Miracle Superlather Ingredient & Very Good for Shaving When Mixed with Ivory in 50/50 Blend - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/dove-men-care-miracle-superlather-ingredient-very-good-for-shaving-when-mixed-with-ivory-in-50-50-blend.621972/

Note that while I found the above bath soap blend to be good, shave/bath soap blends work better at a relatively low cost of around $2.50 per 3.5+ oz. puck. While my more detailed recipes are posted elsewhere a blend of roughly the following should work well:

  • Approx. 2 oz grated Williams (if you have it) or Arko shave soap (One puck or one stick)
  • Two ounces of grated Ivory (or your favorite tallow based bath soap)
  • Two ounces of grated Dove Men + Care
  • One 2.5 ounce puck Van Der Hagen Deluxe (VDH) (Melt and add to blend of above grated soaps)
Mix the first three grated soaps together and then pour in the melted VDH and kneed the soap to further blend. Form into two pucks or press into your favorite shaving soap container. The VDH acts as a binder in addition to supporting lather quality. Note that since the VDH coats everything in the blend the full benefits of the blend are realized with the second or third shave. You can play around with what works best for you based on preferences and the products you have access to. Note the above recipe can provide roughly 6 months of daily shaves at a little over a one gram per shave usage rate. Not bad for around $5 worth of soap.

The specific blends I've been using generate core shaving performance that is as good as any off-the-shelf shaving soaps or creams that I've tried though off-the-shelf products, such as Mitchell's Wool Fat, Proraso Red, Arko or Williams by itself, Tabac (new vegan formula), LEA cream or Razorock What the Puck provide additional benefits such as improved post shave feel, scent and/or the convenience of not having to blend. Currently I enjoy a rotation of both my custom and off-the-shelf shaving soaps/creams.

As always YMMV. As mentioned before this is a great hobby that allows each of us an experience tailored to our personal preferences.
I don’t grate soaps and, frankly, that sounds like a lot of work. Here, whenever a hand soap gets too small to use, I throw it into my shaving soap bowl, a repurposed yogurt container. It goes in there w whatever was in there before, a coincidental mix of soaps. I lather in the bowl; the various soaps remain in that bowl until replaced by new scraps. It’s not scientific in any way. The blend is whatever happens to be.
 
I don’t grate soaps and, frankly, that sounds like a lot of work. Here, whenever a hand soap gets too small to use, I throw it into my shaving soap bowl, a repurposed yogurt container. It goes in there w whatever was in there before, a coincidental mix of soaps. I lather in the bowl; the various soaps remain in that bowl until replaced by new scraps. It’s not scientific in any way. The blend is whatever happens to be.
Glad that a simpler approach works for you. Recall reading that your approach was once quite common. More precise blending for consistency is worth the effort for me as it's delivered significant gains in performance from low cost soaps. Also prefer to shave, with a sharp blade that can nick our skin, with soaps, including low cost bar soaps, that were not formerly used to clean the "less pristine" parts of our bodies as soaps can harbor bacteria.

For everyone reading this, regardless of the soap we use, it's better to periodically finish off the soap, clean it out the cup/bowl and then start with a new soap or blend. If not there is a risk that the process of sticking newer soap scraps on top of old will lead to an accumulation of crud/loose whiskers/etc. that may not be ideal for shaving.
 
I was happy with a little dryer lather when using DE and SE razors. The lather stayed in place and I was able to carry an extra bit of water to the shave by not shaking all of the rinse water from the razor before going to the face; adding slickness as I went. That method worked until I began using straight razors, and had to switch to a much wetter (albeit thinner on average) lather. Most soaps hold up to extra water, and it's plenty slick and now that I've gotten used to it, it's all I go for.
 
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